


Masterpiece

by Nottherealdean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Past Character Death, Past Torture, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 23:33:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1836229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nottherealdean/pseuds/Nottherealdean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demon Dean Fest fill for the prompt: alastair’s with him all the time now. and he’s prouder than ever.<br/>Takes place from a couple minutes before to a couple minutes after Crowley's monologue in 9x23.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Masterpiece

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to Super-Wiki for the transcript of Crowley's monologue.

_Mmmmm_ , said Alastair’s voice in the stillness.  _Good job, Dean. I always knew you had it in you_. 

No, no this isn't— Dean thought fiercely as he struggled to make sense of it. He had been dying, he had chosen to go even though Metatron wasn't dead yet and it could still all turn to utter shit like it usually did, and he'd died. He knew that feeling well enough. But this… this wasn't like the other times. He didn't know where he was, other than that Alastair was with him, so maybe the Mark had changed him enough that he was in some special afterlife where demons who bought the farm went.

_This isn’t how you thought it’d be? No, it's not._  There was Alastair's horrible, amused chuckle. _But it’s even better than if you had stayed in Hell all along, isn’t it? The Mark of Cain, created by Lucifer himself, on my little Dean. I’m impressed by you, boy. You’ve really made something of yourself._

I won’t be that! 

_This is proud moment for me. I’ll admit, I was disappointed when the angels took you away from me. I was looking forward to your graduation day, but now I get to be here in the front row anyway._

I'll find a way to stop this, you bastard, Dean yelled into the void. I don't care what I have to do to myself, I won't be the thing you want me to be— 

There was more indulgent laughter. 

_Difficult to the end. That’s where your potential is. Real **art**_ , his voice trailed over the word, making worse than if he had just called it what it was, _takes tenacity. There’s no room for dilettantes at the rack._

Dean felt a kind of silent moan that even in his thoughts he couldn’t give form to. 

_It takes the right kind of soul, strong enough not to break into a useless mess but supple enough to bend just right. After meeting daddy, I had hopes that you would fit the bill and, ahh… why do birds suddenly appear_ , he started singing,  _every time you’re near?_

He couldn’t silence Alastair; he couldn't make it stop. But Alastair must have noticed his panic, the way his thoughts were spinning wildly out of control but going nowhere. 

_Shall I tell you a secret?_  he murmured, now soft and velvety.  _Sure, you know me well enough after all our time together to guess it anyway, don’t you? Here it is, then, between you and me: I've had doubts. Lucifer, well, he isn’t all he cracked up to be, is he? I know you weren’t impressed. And a god can’t survive being disappointing. I lost my faith, Dean, and getting you to pick up the razor was what got the ball rolling. It’s a funny old world, isn’t it?_

He didn’t want to hear this. Alastair tearing into him was bad enough, Dean didn’t want to have to listen to this sick, chummy confession. The forced intimacy of being made into Alastair’s confidante revolted him, like being tied up (or held down, hands pressing against his body) and getting caressed instead of struck. 

_And then you picked up another blade, and a different kind of faith was rewarded. My god has failed me, but man— man has delivered. That’s where my belief ought to have been, in the glory of humanity._

No.

_And what boundless glory it is. One day, you'll see it. You'll see it and paint the town **red**. _

NO! **  
**

_And now that neither of us has a grander purpose anymore, I can finally appreciate you properly. No more rushing through it to get the party started. Just you and me, and all the time left in your little, un-killable heart._

I hate you, Dean thought, and it sounded weak to himself.

_Now now, I'm the closest you've gotten to a dad who's proud of you. Truly proud, after seeing all the dirty, shameful bits you try to hide. This is your best shot, Dean, don't throw it away. I'll even tell you what's going on, that's more than John ever did._

I  _hate_  you.

_You died, but it didn't quite take. No crying uncle and getting out of it once you get the Mark of Cain. That's where we are, stuck in your cold corpse. Now it's just a matter of time, because sooner or later, someone's going to get the bright idea of bringing the First Blade to you. It might be soon, if anyone has their wits about them, or it might be in a couple centuries. It doesn't matter, your meat won't rot, or get eaten by rats, or be blown to bits in a mortar strike. You might even get a shrine and a sainthood if the right person thinks you're a holy relic._

Dean didn't know if it sounded better or worse than discovering a new layer of afterlife, a subhell to scream for all eternity in. He was hanging by a thread already, and trying to weigh the pros and cons would be like deliberately looking down into the abyss, so Dean shoved that thought aside. 

So I'm dead but stuck here— in some grave or, or—

_You'd like it to be a grave, wouldn't you? So that vehicle of my disillusionment won't be searching for a way to raise you up and hit on the Blade. I wouldn't count on it, son._

— somewhere, inside my own skull. Then how did you get here? If this is all in my body, then what are you doing in here with me?

_What, you don't feel it too?_  Alastair's voice was mock-hurt.  _The magic? The unbreakable bond of teacher and student? It's one of the deepest relationships possible between two people, Dean, stronger than blood or lust or love. I made you, and I'm still making you. Death can't break us apart.  
_

The hell it can't!

_That's not much of comeback, not when I've been dead for years and you leaked out all your blood, and yet here we both are._

You're in my head—

_You're slow today._

— you aren't really here, you're all in my head because I've finally really snapped and lost it. I'm making all this up. 

_I suppose if that makes you feel better, go ahead and believe it. Believe that this isn't the demon who tortured you for decades, it's **all**  you. Dean Winchester, thinking about how he can run wild and tear the earth apart and love every blood-soaked minute of it. _

I won't!

_Then I guess it must be me._

Go away! Go away, just, just—

_Leave you alone? Not a chance, kiddo. Ahhhhh, here we go._  Alastair's voice changed, anticipation lacing through it in a way that made Dean cringe.  _ **That** , you should be able to feel. _

Dean, caught between the dread of finding out what made Alastair sound so eager and the fear of not knowing what was coming, tentatively tried to sense anything in the emptiness surrounding him. The darkness was absolute, but there was, maybe, an end to it that hadn't been there before. As if it had edges, and beyond the boundaries was something more. There came a new voice just at the limit of his hearing. 

"Your brother, bless his soul, is summoning me as I speak." 

Goddamn it, Dean thought at Crowley's familiar voice.

_He's brought the Blade. Useful after all._

"Make a deal, bring you back. It's exactly what I was talking about, isn't it? It's all become so… expected." 

I'll kill him. If he even  _thinks_  about taking a deal from Sam, I'll stick him like a pig. 

Alastair chuckled. 

"You have to believe me. When I suggested you take on the Mark of Cain, I didn't know this was going to happen. Not really. I mean, I might not have told you the entire truth. But I never lied. I never lied, Dean. That's important. It's fundamental."

Like I give a shit. You're a petty little murdering weasel who got power he doesn't even know what to do with, Crowley, and have been trying to play me with it this whole time.

_Mmmmm_.

"But… there is one story about Cain that I might have… forgotten to tell you. Apparently, he, too, was willing to accept death, rather than becoming the killer the Mark wanted him to be. So he took his own life with the Blade. He died. Except, as rumor has it, the Mark never quite let go."

_I told you_ , whispered Alastair, and the edges around Dean began to draw in closer, or he grew out to meet them. 

I could have guessed that, Dean thought, feeling sick despite being disconnected from his body. I could have put that all together somehow, it doesn't mean you're real.

_Real enough_.

Shut up!

"You can understand why I never spoke of this. Why set hearts aflutter at mere speculation? It wasn't until you summoned me…"

You shut up too, you dick, god do you love to hear yourself talk.

"No, it wasn't truly until you left that cheeseburger uneaten…"

Fire burned across his palm— his palm that he could now feel, lax and room-temperature and dead, but there— and started to crawl up his arm, dragging sensation with it. It snaked to the Mark and set it off like a fuse reaching a bomb. 

A surge of heat coursed through him, racing out to the edges of the darkness he had begun feeling earlier and then splashing back in waves of sparks and fizzes. The skin and muscle it left behind stayed cool, but Dean could feel it again.

"— that I began to let myself believe."

 He could feel it when Crowley lifted his limp arm, the Blade folded into his hand, and let it fall on his chest. It was light— the old dry bone weighed hardly anything— but it roared with power.  

"Maybe miracles do come true."

The instinctive urge to choke, to gasp for breath in response, would have overtaken Dean if it weren't for the fire reverberating through him and overwhelming him, leaving him frozen. 

"Listen to me, Dean Winchester, what you're feeling right now— it's not death. It's life— a new kind of life."

The arcs of power were slowly settling into some kind of equilibrium, a tide line of fire stretched across his body. 

"Open your eyes, Dean. See what I see. Feel what I feel. And let's go take a howl at that moon."

It subsided into a gentle ripple, and Dean opened his eyes.

_Good_.

He could see. He curled his fingers around the hilt of the Blade. He could move too, then.

Dean was lying on a bed in the bunker, with Crowley standing over him. He wasn't surprised, not really anyway, that he could see Crowley's host but also Crowley himself, dirty red and disgusting. 

"Feeling better?" Crowley asked, but when Dean sat up he took half a step back. "Love the new look. Goes with everything, black does." 

Anticipation but a bit of fear too, Dean decided. Crowley didn't know what to expect either, whatever his hopes might be. 

_You'll get stronger_ , Alastair said almost forgivingly.  _Your eyes won't stay black for long if you apply yourself._

Dean stood, and flexed his hand on the Blade. 

"Aren't you going to say anything? I did just bring you the one thing that could pull you out of that catatonic state." 

"Did you expect me to get you fruit basket?" Dean said, thinking about Linda, locked up in a cell; about Kevin on the run and exhausted; about Sarah choking to death on the floor. The nameless dead guy bled dry and left on the floor of a hotel room like an empty chip bag. 

He stepped forward and brought the tip of the Blade up under Crowley's chin, smooth and fast before Crowley had time to bolt. He held it there, with just enough pressure to force Crowley's chin up. The hand holding the Blade was steady, but his left hand he had to press against his leg to keep from shaking. 

"Didn't I say I'd kill you?"

_Beautiful. You'll get more power if you drag it out. Take him back to Hell and do it in front of everyone, and you'll have their fear._

No!

_Bring Hell to its knees, Dean. I know you can._

I don't want to! I won't do it. 

_Back to thinking you can say no to me? Remember how that worked out last time._

Crowley was babbling something, ridiculous hurt on his face. The leather-wrapped handle of the Blade was cool, dry, and hard in Dean's hand. He could give in and save himself some pain. He could pacify Alastair and stop struggling against what the Blade wanted, and it would hurt so much less. 

Time seemed stretched out, like it too was being pulled and twisted. Alastair was a silent, looming presence in his mind. The Blade throbbed with power as strained to be unleashed and dive up into flesh. As the moment held, Dean realized that he was the one holding it. He was the linchpin, Alastair's hopes and the Blade's killing urge and Crowley's life revolving around him while he remained motionless. He was the convergence point, and his actions were the pivot on which it all hung.

He wanted to grind Alastair's dreams to dust; he wanted to deny the Blade's bloodlust; he wanted to end Crowley's life. 

So. What did he have to work with? Even here and now— dead, demonic, and with his torturer digging at him from the inside— there had to be something. 

The urge to kill, that he'd overcome before, as both human and vampire. If he could fight it down again and keep the Blade in check, then, presumably, his dead body was strong enough to survive the fight. And refusing to kill on the Blade's urgings didn't have to mean embracing pacifism, it just meant he would have to be careful to make sure killing Crowley was on  _his_  terms. Restrain the Blade, hold off on killing Crowley until he had a firm grip, or better yet a weapon that didn't try to pull him toward killing like north pulled a compass needle. It would come down to self-denial. Dean could do that. 

Alastair… Alastair would be harder. 

Dean gathered himself up and forced his arm down a fraction of an inch, making the Blade just brush Crowley's skin instead of dimpling it. He had to focus on keeping it there so it didn't creep back up. 

_Choose right, or you'll have to do it over,_  Alastair warned while Crowley stuttered to a stop, fear bright in his eyes. Alastair couldn't be everywhere in his mind then, or else he would already know. 

"You changed Hell," Dean said, balanced on the knife edge between control and everything flying apart. "When you became king, you renovated the place."

"I… yes," said Crowley, looking like he was trying to find where Dean was headed. "I changed the wallpaper a bit, added a few of my own ideas, took—"

"How much can be changed?"

"How… much?" 

" _How much_  can the king of Hell change?"

"Ah," Crowley said, with the tone of someone who was still lost in a new landscape but had spotted high ground. "Well, there are certain…  _structural_  constraints, but for the most part the king gets what the king wants. I could—" his eyes flicked down to Dean's arm that was holding the Blade up to his chin, "— show you, if you wanted the tour."

"I think you better do that," Dean said. "And you'll be handing over the keys when you're done."

"Dean Winchester, settling for a desk job? I never thought I'd see the day," Crowley said, desperation edging into his voice. "It'll only be more responsibilities weighing you down, and you know how you are about responsibilities. Sure you don't want to toss it all away and go find something new?"

Dean gave a one-shoulder shrug. "Some choices you gotta make if you want to make choices at all. So I'm going to be king of Hell."

_That's it. Keep going._

The tension of holding the Blade away from drenching itself in Crowley's blood was getting slightly easier, now that he'd started to settle into the strain of it. 

"Now why don't you put on your tour guide hat and give me the long tour, so I can see how all those Swiss watch gears turn and you can have some extra time to try and find a way out of this alive." 

"Bloody typical. Go into business with a Winchester and get screwed," Crowley said, lashing out and scrabbling for a weak spot. There was bitterness too, though, like he'd actually believed his own spin that he was Dean's friend. "You can't help using people up and throwing them away when you're done, can you?" 

"Stop projecting, Crowley, I got enough of that during your little mid-life crisis back at the cafe."

Crowley winced.

"But you're right about me using  _you_ , so let me tell you how it's going to be," Dean said. "You're going to show me how to make Hell into whatever I want. Then, if you've done a good job, I might let you live long enough to help set up a deal with the reapers, so the souls locked out of Heaven come to me. Sound good?"

_Yes_ , and Alastair laughed.

"You're going to take all the souls," Crowley said, sounding stunned. "Every human soul that dies… Ambitious."

"Don't forget the doorway to Purgatory. I should be able to get some monster souls too," Dean said with a smile he didn't feel. He wasn't sure he could pull it off. 

"What, you die and now you're Alexander the Great, conquering the known world? You can't keep all those souls in line. You'll overreach and fall on your face. And then be ripped to shreds." 

_Oh ye of little faith_. 

"It won't be that hard."

"You sound like Cas, and we all know what happened with him. Come off it, Dean, you don't want to have to deal with Hell. Now let's run off together before Moose gives up summoning me and catches us  _in flagrante_."

"See, but my plan is better than his." Are you listening, Alastair? Dean thought. "I'm going to make Hell the best afterlife there is. Everybody gets their own private holodeck to load up with whatever tickles their fancy—"

_You should know better than this, Dean._

"— and I'll put in some nice communal spas, all you can eat buffets… maybe hold paintball tournaments and karaoke nights. There'll be every cable channel in existence, no ads. And anyone who wants to go back to the old dog-eat-dog, torture routine, can either keep it to their private little fantasyland with their hologram victims, or—" Dean jiggled the Blade under Crowley's chin, "— they can talk to me." He smiled again, this time with a small measure of genuine satisfaction. He'd made his bid for freedom, now he had to run with it. 

_Oh Dean. Dean, Dean, Dean._

"You want to make Hell  _nice,_ " Crowley said, accusingly, like Dean had offended him to his core.

You can't stop me, Dean thought at Alastair. You're a voice in my head and you're a nasty one, but I'm the one walking and talking. I'm the one holding the Blade. 

_I can hurt you, we both know that._

Like I ever thought I'd get through this without being hurt. No, you're going to sit in here in my head and you're going to watch me  _ruin Hell_ , you bastard. You won't even recognize it by the time I'm done with it. Your Hell is going to go up in smoke, Alastair, and you're the one who helped strike the match.  

_Ah, I see._ He laughed, softly. _**I'm**  the one you're putting on the rack. Well, I am proud of you, Dean. You have vision, and this is one hell of a commitment you're making. That's the trouble with taking on apprentices, isn't it? The good ones wind up proving themselves against you. Alright, then. Let's see you paint your masterpiece. _


End file.
